Flowers for Florence [HIATUS]

01 . As the School Year Ends

With finals over and the school year coming to an end, morale was high among my peers. For me though, not much had changed. I just had less to do now, and that was about it. I couldn't bring myself to partake in discussions and preparations for the prom, or about the newest gossip.

It was the middle of the math class, yet almost if not all of us did not care. Neither did the teacher, seemingly. At the end of the class, he gave us a half assed homework, and left the room. I sighed and laid my head on the table, only to start getting poked by the girl sitting next to my desk, Hayley. Also the only friend I had made in my time in the school. Only once I had turned my head over did she stop poking me.

"So, are you asking Elle out to prom?" She was so excited about the prom that she'd constantly find a way to talk about it. I sighed. "No. I'm scared of confrontation. She wouldn't like a guy like me anyways."

Hayley rolled her eyes and smirked. "That would be her loss."

"Can we stop talking about my crush now, I'm not in the mood to get known for having one."

"You're never in the mood for anything." She pouted, acting upset. I checked the time on my watch, my bus wasn't coming until half an hour later. I redirected my attention to Hayley. "And I assume you'll be going with Joshua."

"Duhh, he's my boyfriend!" Almost on cue, Joshua came along, his backpack holding for dear life on his shoulder, ready to slip at a moment's notice. Joshua himself seemed very energetic considering it was Monday on a school day. "Hey babe." He said, and started kissing Hayley, which, if they weren't in public, was definitely going to get too heated.

Luckily Joshua remembered something and stopped their making out. He pulled out a couple of photos from his backpack, and this action led to the inevitable fall of the backpack. "More have arrived." He said bluntly, and my curiosity was peaked. "More? Of what?"

Hayley checked the photos out and looked at me, clearly contemplating if she should tell me. "Well... ah fuck it. Joshua and I have been getting these creepy photos. It's all of Joshua. They're just following him around."

In the mean time she handed me one of them, someone had taken a photo of Joshua exiting from the shower. The blinds of the window were closed but somehow the photographer had managed to get a peek from beneath it. This made me realize that even though Joshua was energetic, he also looked distressed for the good part of the last four weeks. I had assumed it was school stress, perhaps I was wrong.

"We're trying to figure out who it is, but we don't have much to work with." Hayley seemed to be more concerned about Joshua than he himself. "Shit.." I said. "If there's anything I can help with, you guys will ask me, alright?" Hayley gave me a crooked smile. "Thanks Florence, I'm glad that you're around."

"No need. It's just natural."

"I'm still going to host that party I've been planning for the last two months." Joshua said. "I'm not letting this creepy fucker ruin my fun. You're coming right, Florence?" He asked me, staring intently into my eyes. I found this weird, but shrugged. "Yeah, Friday right?" He nodded.

"Well, we'll go now. Joshua's going to drop me off." Hayley said. We bid our farewells and they headed out to home. I packed my stuff and started to surf the internet on my phone while I waited for the bus to arrive. Usually I'd wait at the bus stop, but today I just wasn't eager to get going. It was likely that I'd miss the bus, but I decided that I'd take my chances.

The room itself had been mostly emptied. Rayne, one of Hayley's bffs was chatting on her phone while drinking a soda. Gene and his girlfriend Naomi were making out towards the back of the class, and Simon and Callum were studying unnecessarily. I put on my earbuds and started to scroll through my songs, when Hayley sent me a message with a photo attached.

Hayley
'Omg look what I saw on our way to the exit!'

The photo was that of my locker, and someone had taped a bouquet of roses on it. I was astonished at how they managed to make it stable, then I asked the more important question. Who did this and why??

Florence
'Huh. Did you see who it was?'

Hayley
'Nope! But it's so exciting! 😝😝 Finally have someone interested ifykwim.'

I chuckled, and got out of my seat to get to my locker. Unsurprisingly Hayley and Joshua had left by the time I had arrived. From a distance I could already see the bouquet. When I got closer I realized that perhaps removing it was going to be harder than actually taping it on the locker. I had to remove the tape one by one, slowly, making sure not to rip or tear the paper that held the flowers.

Why did the packaging have to be paper?

I was definitely late by the time that I was done, but it felt like it was worth it. There was a card that sat among the roses, it read 'For Florence' on the front. I picked it up and turned it around.

'Hey Florence,

You probably don't know I exist, and that's okay. I'll give you flowers anyway.'

It was sorta creepy sorta endearing. But I had never been the receiving (nor the giving, if I had to be honest) end for flowers. So I appreciated someone spending money and time to set this up.

I put them in my backpack, carefully. They took every last bit of space that was left after my books and pencil case. However it seemed that I would have to leave the zipper open. I didn't mind.

Once I was outside I saw that there was no other bus coming, well, not any bus that would be taking me to where I wanted to go. I had missed the last one because I was fixated on the flowers. But what else was I supposed to do really? Had I left them there, they would have been thrown away during cleaning. If I had made rash decisions and just ripped it off of my locker, the paper would get destroyed, thus effectively destroying any way of me actually being able to transport the flowers back home.

I sighed and opened my phone, hovering over the contact list that read 'Janice.' She was my mother's sister, and for the most part of my life, my mother figure. Both my parents are almost never home, they are always traveling due to their job. Honestly I was impressed that they could even get a child with how busy they were.

Janice has always lived alone, and she tells me that she has no intentions of marrying. Though just like my mother, she always has a lot of work to do. The only difference between the two being that Janice doesn't have to travel as much, perhaps once or twice a year.

In short, what this meant was that if I were to call Janice now, and ask her if she could take me home, she'd politely decline and say she's busy, or I would be led into her voicemail.

So I stuck it out and started walking towards home, I wasn't in a rush anymore, all the homework were unnecessary at this point. I listened to music while walking along the road. In this stretch of land only a couple of cars would pass by me every now and then. I didn't worry much about them.

My phone started to buzz again, and upon looking at my screen, I noticed that it was only the class group talking about pointless things and Joshua's party.

I was still on the fence about actually joining the party. I just didn't see any reason to go there. I didn't care if it was going to be a 'big party to celebrate graduation.' That was basically prom. I didn't need two of those in my life.

Almost on cue Joshua texted me.

Joshua
'You're coming on Friday right?'

I left him on read as I finally arrived home, and let myself in. There was a note in the counter from Janice saying that she was going to be late; as expected. I decided to chill, grabbed myself some chips and sat in front of the TV, then I came back to the message Joshua had sent me.

I sighed in defeat.

Florence
'Yeah, I'll be there.'

Joshua
'Great. I can't wait.'